I saw someone on here mention getting a Kindle Fire. As far as I can understand, it's a waste of money because you can't watch the movies on there and download the applications people could download if they're in the U.S. I'm contemplating getting a kindle pretty soon as my book collection is starting to increase, and I like to read and physically buying books is not a good idea. That's one reason I haven't bought many books lately.

If your primary purpose is to read books, get a Kindle with e-ink. It's much easier on the eyes. Plus it's cheap (under $100) enough to just buy without giving it too much thought.

Also, the Kindle Fire is crap. Cheap, poorly designed crap. So much so that there's been murmurings of a new version coming out much faster than expected to fix the many flaws of the current one.

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This guy's review on Amazon seemed to sum up the problems enough to convince me not to ever get one:

* power button is in a TERRIBLE spot - the bottom. we have both accidentally hit the button more than once. But wait - can't you just rotate the device around that the screen will re-orient so the button is on the top? No. Oddly, and frustratingly, some apps, will, some won't. That should be baked into the OS, not dependent on the App!

* It gets hot. uncomfortably hot, and only after 20 minutes of use. and it only gets hot in the bottom portion - where more than likely you are HOLDING it, oh yeah, and accidentally hitting the power button.

* touch screen is inaccurate. If you hold the device at an angle in the sun, you can clearly see the spacing of the touch sensors, and then you will know why the touch screen is so dodgy. they really cheaped out on this with very few sensors. I get why, for the price point, but with so many apple devices out there, that's GOT TO BE considered the standard now - the iphone Edge came out YEARS ago, no being able to measure up to that is just not gonna cut it. The credit card signing pad at the grocery store has better accuracy than this.

* scrolling is jittery, stutters, and un-even. So everything has to have scrolling nowadays, but it's a fail on the Fire. It actually hurts my eyes to try to watch the screen as it scrolls, it stutters and jitters in a very unpleasant way, I can only describe it as a strobe effect.

* screen does not dim enough. come on Amazon - it's a KINDLE! I'm guessing that more than 1/2 of all kindle users read in bed! in a DARK BEDROOM. even at the lowest setting, the Fire is obnoxiously bright for nighttime reading in bed, and not useable as a reader in that scenario.

* not a good Ereader, in general. The Fire screen doesn't even compare to a Kindle Eink screen. period.

* No lock. seriously. there no way to password protect the device. You leave it in a cab, on the subway, a bus, restaurant, where ever, and whoever picks it up instantly has access to your amazon account, and can happily start making charges, not to mention, if you've got email set up on it, all the security risk potential there. This, in my opinion, is the second most glaring and epic FAIL of the Fire. Because it would have been SO EASY to have fixed this when they developed the software. (see below for the worst of all)

* Multi-touch? there's ONE multi-touch gesture. that's it. zoom. and it doesn't work in a lot of places you'd expect it to. Basic places. Like Google maps. Seriously? Isn't this thing running on an OS created BY GOOGLE?!? But no, you have to use the little + and - buttons for zooming.

* Browser. completely fails to live up the the hype Amazon gave it (I watched ALL the demo videos and pre-release reviews I cold get my hands on). My iPhone is faster on the same wi-fi connection. But worse that the speed, the browser isn't even full screen.(the top and bottom go unused. I'm sorry but when you only have a 7" screen, every little bit makes a big difference.

* the 'carousel' GUI. (graphic user interface). Okay, this is the big one. First off, as every other 1 star review has mentioned, there's zero privacy. When you turn it on, you are faced with a gigantic display of recent activity, on a virtual 'shelf'. Giant and often poorly rendered icons of WHATEVER 6-10 things you happened to have been doing last on the Fire are there for all the world to see. But what's even worse is this: YOU CANNOT CHANGE IT. you can't delete stuff from there, you can't re-arrange stuff in there. it's just there. and WAY TOO BIG. how about a home screen you can customize? Amazon will tell you that you can use 'favorites'. But no. favorites only stack up in whatever order you put them in there - you can't arrange that either. It really boggles the mind. what were they thinking?

I'm not sure why you decided to quote that review, as there are many other reviews that are pretty positive about the Kindle Fire. Also, the comments section under the review lists a number of points the author of the review is simply wrong about.

I'm not sure why you decided to quote that review, as there are many other reviews that are pretty positive about the Kindle Fire. Also, the comments section under the review lists a number of points the author of the review is simply wrong about.

I saw plenty of great reviews, but it seems tough to use outside of the U.S. That seems to be a problem if you want to use it in Korea to be able to watch movies and download the apps. I'm sure there is a way to get around it for the experts who know how.

Definitely go for the e-ink. I brought my Kindle 3 to Korea two years ago and I've been using it almost every day. Also, the battery lasts forever: I charge mine every week since that's how often The Economist comes out, but it could easily go for 2-3 weeks between charges.

The only minor annoyance is that you can't sync wirelessly with your computer, but it's not really that big of a deal.

I'm not sure why you decided to quote that review, as there are many other reviews that are pretty positive about the Kindle Fire. Also, the comments section under the review lists a number of points the author of the review is simply wrong about.

I saw plenty of great reviews, but it seems tough to use outside of the U.S. That seems to be a problem if you want to use it in Korea to be able to watch movies and download the apps. I'm sure there is a way to get around it for the experts who know how.

used to own the KF but went back to K4 e-ink NT (non-touch)

yes u can purchase apps and videos overseas if u have a us card. sometimes doesn't work, try a proxy app (similar to hotspot shield)

I had a Barnes and Noble Nook that a friend paid me to buy for her and got to use it a month. I liked that machine because it fit in my pocket. Not sure the Kindle could do that because of the keys, but screens were the same size. Of the two Kindle had darker text, but both were more than sufficient.

The big drawback of the Kindle Fire is the horrible OS. Its ugly, restrictive, and just all around garbage. However, the Kindle is a great piece of technology for the price. The price is the selling point, its just cheap. It is restrictive if you're over here, as most of the amazon prime and streaming stuff doesn't work. However, I got one and flashed ICS to it. I basically have a $200 ICS tablet. Granted hardware acceleration doesn't work yet because the kindle runs on the 2.6 kernel and the 3.0 kernel hasn't been released for it (or modified to work on it) yet, but its only a matter of time and you've got a cheap, fully functional tablet.

So do any of you all use a Kindle Fire in Korea? I have a US debit/credit card. That's not an issue. I also have an American address. I suppose I need to get a VPN to use Prime. Is it possible to use Prime?

Yes, you'd have to VPN to use prime. Unfortunately you cannot use a VPN on the Kindle Fire due to hardware restrictions, unless you're willing to flash it or you have a router with VPN options. Another big problem is that if you're running the default OS you have no access to the android market, only the Amazon market. If you only want a nice ebook reader and internet machine, the KF is a really nice machine. If you're willing to flash a new ROM to it, its a reeeeeally good deal. If you want a real tablet or only want it for Prime, and don't know enough about the technology or don't want to learn, skip the KF and get a real tablet in Korea.

Amazon prime and the movie playing option are the two biggest drawbacks. Otherwise the tablet works beautifully. The front screen of the OS is horrible but once you get past it into the books, Apps, or even the browser the entire device is well worth the price.

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The big drawback of the Kindle Fire is the horrible OS. Its ugly, restrictive, and just all around garbage. However, the Kindle is a great piece of technology for the price. The price is the selling point, its just cheap. It is restrictive if you're over here, as most of the amazon prime and streaming stuff doesn't work. However, I got one and flashed ICS to it. I basically have a $200 ICS tablet. Granted hardware acceleration doesn't work yet because the kindle runs on the 2.6 kernel and the 3.0 kernel hasn't been released for it (or modified to work on it) yet, but its only a matter of time and you've got a cheap, fully functional tablet.

How did you flash ICS to it? Did you find a process on the internet or what?